Mairehau residents like their community

9 August 2006

Mairehau residents have given their community the thumbs up, describing it as friendly, family orientated, safe and a place where there is good neighbourhood connections.

The Shirley-Papanui Community Board today released the findings of a report on the social and recreational needs analysis of Mairehau, carried out on its behalf by Presbyterian Support.

Board chair Yvonne Palmer says the purpose of the analysis was to build a picture of current service provision, to explore needs of the area and to highlight any gaps in service, facility and event provision.

The report is based on a random survey of 889 households, from which 215 responses were received. The research team ran focus groups in the area. About 10% of all households in Mairehau have provided feedback to this report, Mrs Palmer says.

“Both adults and children were overwhelmingly positive in their views on the Mairehau community – 45% of survey respondents made positive comments and only 7% made negative comments,” she says.

Mairehau residents like living in a community that is close to malls, the central city and provides good access to public transport. Young people value living close to their friends and also like the cultural groups at their schools.

Mrs Palmer says residents had their own suggestions on how to improve living in Mairehau. These included further traffic calming measures to discourage speeding, roading changes to reduce traffic congestion and changes to public transport.

Further street beautification, increasing the number of rubbish bins and reducing the amount of graffiti in the area were all seen as beneficial, Mrs Palmer says.

“This report is extremely positive and gives the board an opportunity to match the findings with similar analysis in other parts of the city, such as Shirley and St Albans.

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